The days in Turkey.

As written by peter, a friend I met while traveling:

Chios
In Pyrgi, one of the old ladies asked me where I was from, and when she heard Washington she said “Ahh.. White Castle!” This is the response I get from everyone.. so now I just go with it… I think I will start telling them that I live with Obama in the white castle.
I met a girl from Seattle in Chios, who was staying at our hotel. She was an MBA student at UW, studying for a semester in Istanbul, and she was kind of crazy. She talked superfastanddidntpausebetweenherwords which overwhelmed her audience. And she had the most dire warnings about Turkey. “Oh my gosh, it is so backwards! If you leave the touristy areas you are in big trouble! It is impossible to get anywhere! “ Or, my personal favorite, “All of the signs are in Turkish!” We took everything she said with a block of salt.
My last day in Greece was a very relaxing one. Having decided to miss the 8am ferry to Turkey that morning, I slept in. I woke up and finished my book, For Whom the Bell Tolls, which was a very bleak and emotional way to start the day. I followed that up with, what else, a brilliant British comedy, ‘Run, Fat Boy, Run’ about a miserable guy who lost the love of his life to a prick, and to win her back he runs a marathon. After some lunch, Don, the owner, taught me how to play backgammon again. We figured that as long as we were heading into Turkey, it might be wise to know the national game. After a draining few hours of backgammon, a couple of games of chess, and chatting with overexcited Australian girl about travelling in Turkey, another day was done.
The next morning was an early one to catch the ferry to Turkey. Sprits were high as we said goodbye to Greece and hello to Turkey. The ferry was short, and getting our visas uneventful, and like that, I was out of Europe and into Asia (minor?).
Turkey
(November 22) I am sitting on the bus now to Cappadocia, having skipped right through the Antalya bus station. The past few days have been a lot of travelling, covering a lot of ground, but in Cappadocia I will do most of my exploring on foot.
My last email left me at Turkey, with a fresh visa in my hand. From the port of Cesme, Matthew, Brian and I made our way to the bus station after getting directions from the friendliest man in the tourism office. We got our hands on our first Turkish lira, which was great for the new exchange rate (1.6 YTL to 1 dollar), and then made our way over to Izmir. On the drive over I began to see the spires of Mosques sticking up all around.
The bus stop in Izmir was still a good distance away from where we were planning on staying, but another friendly man who spoke a bit of English showed us where we should catch the bus station, and even went so far as to write us a note for the bus driver telling us where to go, and how to get there. At the bottom it said “Help us” or something. Really great guy. So we got our bags on and started walking.. and then half a block into it we saw a backgammon hall / tea shop, through down our bags and put our newly learned skills to the test.
These backgammon halls/ tea shops are a wonderful phenomenon in Turkey. Filled with old men, cards, tea and smoke, they are unlike anything I’ve seen before. They are ubiquitous in the Turkish towns, and I do not understand how they make any money. All they sell is tea/coffee, and people just sit there playing games for hours on end. At this first one, we played backgammon for about 2 or 3 hours, drinking 12 cups of tea between us (to our credit they are very small, lotus shaped glasses). I think it cost something like 4 dollars.
The best part was when the man who had given us directions to downtown found us sitting playing backgammon 3 hours later when he came to get a tea. He was shocked, laughing and saying it was the last thing he expected. Finally we did leave, hiking roughly 8km through the city through the rain to find out the hotel we planned to stay in had no showers. One highlight of the walk was going through the bazaar of the town, all boarded up for the night, with the trash from the day being piled up like giant leaf piles on the sides of the street. Dark alleyways lined the streets, and cats and dogs were digging through the trash looking for food. I heard my first call to prayer too, which is a potent reminder that you are in a foreign place. At 6pm it is a beautiful thing, but waking up to it at 6am every morning does get tiresome.
The hotel we ended up at was very nice, and with a little haggling we ended up staying quite cheap. It even included the standard Turkish breakfast, which consists of cucumber, tomato, olives, a feta-like cheese and some bread. The next morning, the rain storm had passed over and it was a beautiful day. We explored the town a bit, played some more backgammon in another hall, and got to see the old Roman Agora in the center of town.
When we play backgammon at these places we really stick out. I can’t imagine a place muchfurther from a tourist location, so we get a lot of stares when we first show up, but most people are really encouraging and glad to see us playing backgammon. Some of the old men like to show you better moves, and anyone who speaks any English will walk up to you and ask you where you from. (America? Obama!). It is a really great way of getting involved with people.
Another rain storm rolled in on Izmir just before we left, so we were running to make it to the bus station. We ended up at the train station, which worked out too! To kill the time before our train, we walked to find a place to play backgammon.. but on the way passed a barber. Matt and Brian had been talking about getting haircuts, so we stopped in . At the door we asked how much, and they said 5 and 5 for shave/hair cut. They sat Matt and Brian down, and after a quick shave started shampooing their hair and putting a green mask on their faces ( see the pictures). A little wax was put on each cheek and peeled off ( I guess to get rid of unwanted cheek hairs). After Matthew finished, I was forced into the chair. “No no, I’m okay, really” “No you must! Problem, no problem!” The talkative barber, Mustafa, loved to say problem, no problem! , gesturing with his hands on his face and head. So I was convinced to get a haircut/shave, because, why not?
After a fun experience, we were offered tea and then, when we got up to leave, the bill. Now.. we were expecting 10 lira each.. maybe 5 for me because I just got a shave.. so when he showed us the calculator to explain that it was 50 each, well, we were a bit shocked. He kept pointing to the calculator, saying that it was 5 and 5 for haircut and shave, and then 20 for the mask on the face and 20 for the hair shampoo… both of which we didn’t ask for! I really wish I knew how to say “Hey buddy… you said 5 and 5.. you never asked us if we wanted that mask, you threw it on us without telling us a price.” Instead I asked him to show me a price list, and he pointed at one thing that was like 55. It included the word “manikur” among many others. I’m no expert in Turkish, but I’m guessing it translates to manicure. Anyway, we kept arguing and talking him down, until we just left 60 lira and left. That was the first time someone had blatantly tried to con me, which was a learning experience. Next time I will make sure the price gets written down before hand! But it was a fun experience, although the shave/haircut was not even that good. Ahh well, live and learn.
I left Izmir the following night for Selcuk, a small town just 2 hours south on the western coast of Turkey. Matt and Brian were still travelling with me, and we stayed the night at an Australian run hostel just outside town. All through the night there was a huge thunderstorm, lasting for hours and hours with lightning lighting up the sky and thunder shaking the ground. I have never been in a thunderstorm that lasted for so many hours, usually they seem to blow right past. Like the night before in Izmir, the rain was pouring down, harder than we ever see in Seattle. Apparently it was their first rain in 6 months, so I guess I brought it with me.
We woke the next day and walked down the road to Ephesus, about 45min away. On the way we met some people picking manderine oranges, and they told us to pick some for ourselves. They were some of the best I’d ever had, exploding with flavor in each bite. Ephesus is an old Greek/Roman town that, along with Pompei, is the best preserved ancient city in the Mediterranean. The marble streets still run through the town, past the remnants of temples, houses, shops , a library, and a pair of theatres. The large theatre was impressive, with amazing acoustics. Apparently they still hold big concerts there, which would be a great experience. It was definitely the most impressive set of ruins I have seen.

Pamumukale
Next on the agenda was a bus ride to Pammukale. Pammukale is a town set below a natural wonder.. . the hills have turned white from the calcium deposits of the rock. It looks like something out of a dream, from a distance it seems like snow, but then up close it looks more like white wax that has been poured down the hillside. An impressive sight, but I decided not to walk up to look from the top, where the ruins of an old Roman city sit. It used to be 5 lira to get in, but in the last few months it has become 20… and then if you want to go in one of the pools it costs an extra 20 lira. Having not gone in, I now regret it, because when will I be there again? But again.. live and learn. Plus I saved 40 lira to blow on other things later.
At our hotel there were three Spanish ladies, and I chatted with them for a bit in Spanish, which was fun. It was very easy to speak with them in Spanish when in Turkey, compared with in Spain. In Spain there is the sense of reservation because I don’t speak Spanish very well.. but when compared to my Turkish it is downright Shakespearean! Or.. Cervantesean?
Kas
We hopped a bus the next day to Kas. At the bus station in the connecting city of Denizili, we were invited into the office for some tea, and struggled through some Turkish phrases out of Brian’s little language book. They say sharing a cup of tea brings 40 years of friendship, so it is no wonder everyone is so friendly.. they are drinking tea all the time! They bring little trays of it around to the office.. to get some they just yell at someone passing by. In every city I’ve been in people are walking the streets with trays filled with tea, delivering it to other nearby shops.
Kas is a seaside tourism town with only 8000 residents. It was very quiet when we got there at night, and the pension we were looking for was closed. A neighbor walking bye asked us what we were looking for and then led us down the street, asking another lady if a nearbye pension was open. She just started hollering, then called her neighbor on phone, who then showed up and showed us the place. It was great to see how everyone went out of their way to help us find the place, and the lady yelling for the neighbor to get out and let us in was a great scene.
The next day was an exploration of Kas. First, we took off for the theatre, which was tucked up in a hill overlooking the sea. Some local kids were hanging out and causing trouble, and took the chance to practice their English with us, as almost everybody who speaks English seems to. From the theatre we hiked up the hill to find a couple of tombs. They are carved in rock and one we saw here was 2m high and rectangular, with a kid leaning up against it eating a snack. We hiked back into town, stopped for a game of backgammon and a tea at a café, and then moved on to see the Lycian rock tombs carved into the side of the cliffs. These tombs were cut directly into the cliff face all along the cliff overlooking the town. I love climbing things, so the chance to scramble up to these tombs was great. Rain started pouring in that afternoon, just as we were ready to catch our four hour bus ride to Antalya.
With no real plans for Antalya, I didn’t know exactly what to do there, but was using it only as a layover on my way to Cappadocia. But just as we arrived at the bus station, we found an overnight bus to Goreme, a town in Cappadocia, leaving 20min later. This bus ride was 10 hours long… winding through mountains into the heart of Turkey. More thunderstorms and wind shook the bus for most of the trip, but the worst part was the heat, which poured in as the bus struggled up and down the hills. Every 30 minutes I would wake up sweating, with Brian beside me glistening. The Turks on the bus seemed to deal with the heat a bit better than us, but it was truly suffocating.
Cappadocia
As the sun rose over Cappadocia and the bus turned in towards Goreme, the landscape became riddled with spires and caves, gleaming white in the sun. We arrived in Goreme at 7.30am ready (or not) for the day ahead. The friendly man working at the tourist information booth helped us to find a place to stay and also a restaurant for breakfast. Not only that, he managed to find a lost puppy while we ate breakfast and feed it and give it water! The guy was busy! We found the cheapest cave in town, left our stuff, and hiked off to see the Goreme Open air museum. The museum consists of many rock-carved churches with intact frescoes. They were beautiful, but as with any museum, there was very little sense of adventure. This soon changed when, after waiting out a rainstorm playing backgammon and drinking tea ( catch the theme there?) we took a hike through a valley leading to a nearby village. Climbing through abandoned caves and exploring the area was amazing. Really it cannot be explained in words.. so look at the pictures.
The second day in Cappadocia started off with the most amazing breakfast I’ve had on my trip. A common Turkish breakfast is Menemen, which is made of eggs, tomatoes, peppers and garlic, all cooked and served in a low, clay cooking pan. The dish is served bubbling hot, and stays that way thanks to the pan. Every meal is also accompanied by a loaf of bread, useful for sopping up the delicious food.
We started the day off with a hike to Uchisar, a town a few kilometers away topped with a castle (really just a warren of caves and tunnels carved out of the top of the hill). The hike was through Pigeon Valley, with beautiful scenery on all sides, and explorations through tunnels on the way. A pack of about 8 wild looking dogs started barking at us and following us for a bit, which was exhilarating. After not too long we made our way up to the Uchisar castle, where at the top wind and rain battered us until we retreated into a small alcove. From the top we could see sheep being herded through a valley, and on the side of the road far off in the distance we spotted a camel. We hiked down the castle, into the valley, scared some sheep, and caught a bus to head to Derinkuyu, one of the many underground cities.
Derinkuyu was very cool, going down 50 meters underground complete with churches, kitchens, a winery, missionary schools, stables, and more. But most importantly, it had little tiny tunnels going straight down into the earth you could crawl through, which was a lot of fun. They had an ingenious ventilation system, with dozens of ventilation shafts reaching the surface, so there was a pleasant breeze almost everywhere in the city. However, to get around most of the place you needed to be bent half over, and in some places the lights had gone out so you needed to use flashlights. I love that about it though, because it lets you get a sense of adventure and exploration even when in a museum. We caught a rainy bus ride home to Goreme, and found a perfect restaurant.
We ate a local dish, which is served out of a clay pot which they break open at the table. It was a good show, and they let us break open our own pots. Inside was steaming vegetables and chicken cooked to perfection.
Whew! I am finally caught up with today, as I am writing this on November 25th. Today we went to the Zelve valley, which is an open air museum. This place was a lot of fun, with the best explorations of caves yet. We got to climb up the sides of rock faces, crawl through tunnels, and go up 15 foot small square shafts. At times it was a little scary, when squeezing upwards through little tunnels wondering how you were going to get back down, or down a pitch black staircase leading you who knows where.
Tomorrow we are planning on heading to Ihlara Gorge to hike alongside a river up the valley. I then will take an overnight bus to Istanbul, and have 6 nights remaining. I may take a day trip from Istanbul, but will have to see if I can find a good place to go. I can’t wait to see everyone when I get home!